Build something.
Don’t own everyone.

The deal: help make software for the people who use it. Your work earns credit. It does not buy a greater say.

Volunteer for a bounded contribution, or agree payment when funding exists. Equal standing does not require unpaid work, and nobody here will pretend otherwise.

The code is open, under a licence that lets anyone take it and run it somewhere else. That is deliberate. The code was never the valuable part — whoever forks it gets working software and nobody, and this one is worth choosing only for as long as it deserves to be.

The alternative is the one you already know: build an app, ship it, and have nobody come. Or raise money, and still have nobody come.

There is nothing to apply to yet. What gets built, and by whom, is one of the things there will be a vote about.